on him, did not go with it. so i had to destroy it and start again. blue, red, start again. all the make up was the makeup of my grandmother. you can see an exhibition a teddy bear. i should say that he is a little nice monster, but it is a little monster anyway. you know, i have some affinity with air. i'd love the air. i love to touch the air. >> i hope you like my hair, because of a drag queen's last night were trying to touch it. [laughter] >> for the moment, i am not yet a drag queen. but you can look at that photograph of me. thank you for the inspiration. [laughter] >> well we are joking about the corsets, you say it had a message.

it was not showing the women in their undergarments for sexual reasons. it was to show their strong women. certainly madonna personified that. >> definitely. >> was it actually madonna in in 1990, the blond ambition tour, but this was not the first time you had done these bras. there was a link with africa. did i get that right? >> i did not get the thing with africa. >> i thought that when we see -- >> yes, yes, 1985. the first corset dress, i did a collection. collections were big. it was a mix of difficulty. and the lingerie. one part was the lingerie. i did it i think in 1981. i came out with the collection in 1982. of course, i was inspired by my

grandmother. but something else. musical. i saw a musical in new york. something like about the life of fellini. they made a movie of it -- only a few years ago, which was not so good, but the play was excellent. it was broadway. there was one scene where all the women were preparing themselves for the show. all in corset, like satin, salmon color. and i was fascinated with it. i enjoyed the show, but i was only thinking about that, i must say. after that, there was the corset of my grandmother, and at that i have to do it, but it will be a dress. i did attend different dresses. long, shorter, even like a gym suit. i didn't like my souvenir of the

one of my grandmother. and it was -- i did it like my souvenir of my grandmother. and it was a lace up. there was a party at the palace, which was a club. she wanted to wear that. she cannot drink because i did it truly like a real corset. laced up all along the back. no drink, because to go to the toilet, what can she do? she could not put it back. [laughter] she would be in little to nothing. [laughter] >> the title of this exhibition is the idea of going from the street to fashion. from looking at things that are in the street and turning them into fashion or is it the other way round. do you in fact look at the street and see immediately things that are already fashion? are you inspired by that? >> i should say that i have, to

be honest, i did not see very clearly by what i was inspired. i do not know if there is, like, a first-time -- i think it can be everything. but i know i was touched by the things that i think a beautiful, and things that are from the street. like maybe why i also have a kind of obsession, i love to work with denim. it was not so well cena that time. i am born in 1952. in 1958, some boys had denim trousers. for my parents, they felt it was not very elegant. so it was not so nice, not so clean. so me, i fantasy about it. and maybe i was looking more and people that were wearing that kind of close, sometimes going to buy a jacket. there is a movie of marlon brando.

but i must say, i remember it was a time in the 1960's, it was some boy from the suburbs. i suppose little gangs who were supposed to be bad boys. maybe i was a very polite boy. i was a little fascinated by bad ones. [laughter] it came from my fascination with movies, with james dean, most of all marlon brando. all wore rebellious close. i find it very attractive and very interesting. of course, i should say that i love a lot of other things. cinema was also showing that kind of rebellion of the street. for me, maybe it became like those things are not that bad. and they're already recognized. they show some kind of people that i am not at all part of.

but also, i use it may be after -- it inspired me. i love to make them all. the code of what is decent and a decent. what is elegant, not elegant. what is luxurious or not luxurious. changing to the time. >> let's talk now about one of the frontiers that you broke down. you're one of the first to do. you went into the streets of paris but not to the streets that we know that are in front of the palace but the streets with a very mixed community. in those days, even more so. and that inspired you to do collections. this was in a way breaking a parisian code, wasn't it? instead of pretending these immigrants were not there, you're actually inspired by their colors, their hair, their clothes, and you turn them into your collection. >> definitely. i was very inspired by different

people always. maybe -- with me, i felt a little different. a project at school. for example, not doing football. i was more touched by people that are a little different or could be rejected. they inspire me also because i do not know it was another world. for inspiration, for example, because close very clearly, very early became my attraction -- clothes became nmy attraction, a subsection. as more attractive to addressing people than addressing myself. it was not my objective desire, my own person. so i think that if i looked, the

market inspire me. people different in it the streets or inspiring me. not what was fashion. maybe i was a finding something to were very inspiring. laurant. i like the ones that are different and have their own style. i like the ones that are different. they have style. i love them. so everyone that was different, i'd love it. i was not inspired by the jet set. at that time in 1960's, it was like very -- [unintelligible] for example, when i started to work, i am not all in the quatorze address. that is where some young girl -- among the young, i find more

creativity, more interesting fashion in paris than in london. the sense of humor makes them to play more with the clothes and everything. in paris, i could see what was chic in what was not. one time i was working and was arriving at an industry job, and i was wearing boots. they looked at me and said, [unintelligible] as a reproach. i thought, ha ha, very funny. [laughter] but it was beautiful, which can be true but it can be awful, too, a beige. it is not because it is beige,

but it could be the absolute beauty, no. it depends how it is done, how it is made, how it looks like. so i was like, let's say, killing the french fashion. i should say france in general. so absolute. it has to be like that. things that i did not feel like. i think it's time i was going, i felt really in love with london. i felt more freedom. when i was going there, it gave me -- [unintelligible] sending like, yes, go on to do the things you feel are good. because it is very conservative in paris. >> only you had come to san francisco. >> yes. >> i can only imagine what you would have produced. [applause] >> that is true. >> here is this good little boy who is be heading classically and is very charming and

wonderful and working hard. how did you turn into a bad boy? [laughter] and tell us about the whole business of putting sexuality on the map, as it were. when you go into the exhibition here, it is still shocking to see some of the clothes which are suggesting a kind of pervert petit, never against women. you see a lot of flash and tattoos and in the clothing. it must've been completely taboo when you started doing the mine in 1970's and early 1980's. >> i think it was, yes. it was, to be honest, all the things i did that were supposed to be provocative or maybe that make me called a bad boy to the french, because some of the journalists saw that was making

jokes and things like that, provocative things. it was not as a provocation. my goal is to be known, so i have to make them be seen this way. it was more because of my reflection and also what i was seeing around me. i mean, people were thinking that i was going out a lot in going to all the parties. no, i was working, working a lot. but i have eyes on my fashion. my fashion as to see video savoy year. complete voyeur. i love to see. i tell you through tv, a lot of movies. the images make me react. and maybe make me understand also sometimes. sometimes in the wrong way. through image sometimes it is true that you have not to consider that all you see in the images real. they can make you be more

creative. so what was going around, it was the post-rebellion of the woman. and it was some kind of girl in the group in paris, the queen of the pink. make me meet farida. they were beautiful girls dressing up. the love to dress it up there were very chic. at that time, one of them was wearing old chanel from the flea markets. we were a lot going to the flea market. a chanel jacket. and me, i was thinking about my grandmother. of course, it was before. transparency. and they were smoking.

that was provocative in a way. but it was going well with the time, the moment of sexual liberty and freedom because of the hippies. like in san francisco but also a stage of freedom, you know? after that, it was known as a way that the girl wanted to be like madonna, to be strong, to be as strong as a man. showing a little bit of their strategy. it does not mean that those girls were very -- >> easy would be the simple word to say it. [laughter] >> at the time of the 1960's,

there was the first one to do that. he made me do dress or a company scared, know. but there were in shorts as well. that was provocative. >> this provocation and not just about the girls, about women feeling their sexuality. it is also about men. i have seen all your shows and i think i saw them all. but i do not remember in the men's collection for yves laurant, seeing a man powdering his nose going down the runway. >> yes. because he did things that were already very much about at the time. i was very admired. that is true. we did big steps. vocabulary. i have enormous admiration. i was also speaking social

society, which was what was going on in society. me, to my grandmother, i was like feeling. too close to say something indefinitely. yes, why did i do the men like that? because i work around it sex. i saw that what was showing, it was the men in this world where the woman was strong. then have to be equal of the men. and i wanted to show it. there was some interest in like a blazer, a jacket, double- breasted. you have the men's jacket with the inside pocket. it is a pocket for the wallet. the women did not have that. why? because the men pay at the restaurant. but can the woman they, too? i think there was a lot of stupid things -- not stupid, but

the things that were intelligent but one time that changed and was changing. and the vision of the woman about the man was changing, too. some men were not accepting their femininity. does not mean that they were gay or whatever, no. it just means that men can be sensible, but they have been traumatized by their education that wanted to make them as a john wayne, you know? apparently. it was very sensitive in reality. you have to be sensitive anyway. but to look real mature like that. so i wanted to show the first collection i did. for me, it was evident. the male object. i always felt, not consulted because i do not consider myself as a woman, but i felt insulted for the woman to say, you know, there was that expression for the woman.

[speaking foreign language] she had a lot to say, a very modern woman. i say, is that completely stupid? maybe she is beautiful. so i say that the men i show will be balanced. i do not say that is the only object, not at all. unless maybe. but i want to show that community and men. and i wanted to show the masculinity in the woman. >> humans and in passing just now farida kelfer, the was the beginning of the showing on the runway, models who were not typical of the models at the time. i am sorry to say that is this still true that we see so little

diversity on the runways. it is really shameful. you have always thought their direct there are -- showing that there is a recurrence of the beauty from debra countries and origins. >> i was 11 or 12 in a school that was mixed. there were boys and girls. there was one girl i remember that was coming from the french colony. she was in algeria and came back to france. she had a very white skin. very, very white with speckles? >> freckles. >> freckles. more glamorous. glittering.

but she was glamorous for me, sparkles -- no, freckles. sorry, i cannot say. [laughter] but she has beautiful red hair, light afro type but red hair. to me, i was like, oh, my god, she is so beautiful. for me, if i want to be friends with someone that i admire, i have to be like him or her, cannot have the red hair. so i say, i also come from nigeria and i am like you. [laughter] i do not think she believed me so i was inventing names. anyway. so she influenced me. she had white skin. you could see her veins. she was very strange but beautiful for me. i was always attracted by different beauty that i saw everywhere.

i remember some movies called guess who's coming to have dinner tonight with sydney party. i remember i said to my parents -- i was 12. if i come with a black girl, what will you say? and they say, if you love her, that is perfect for you. years after when it told them what i could say about the fact was going with a guy, they said if you love each other, that is wonderful. so i think i was lucky to have parents like that. very modern. very open-minded. unlike for some, there's no question of religion, of color of skin, or anything like that. people can be all beautiful. it depends on who they are, but it is not a question of color. for me, both of us were beautiful. and i loved color. color of the skin. tattoo on the skin, which is a

kind of color. some blue colors that you add. and i wanted to show that. when i started, i remember that there were some beautiful girls. they're beautiful. but i felt like, ok, but there is also beauty. i have a girlfriend which was modeling for me that i met very early when i started that was from a french colony. she was beautiful and black and very inspiring, very nice. i say, yes, why not. for me, a difference was beautiful. they looked to me, and i wanted to show it. another kind of different was the fact that when i saw farida,

i said, my god, she is incredible. i was very impressed by her beauty. very frightened even by her beauty. she was kind of a very arrogant imperial. and african and beauty with a special expression. not arrogant. but beautiful. i said, i want to show this girl which is different. does not know how to walk as a model. they have their own personality. i remember this year i was asking a professional model to walk to see if there were walking too much as a professional model because i did not want that. i wanted to tell them, please what differently. not like a robot doing their profession. they have no control about the

way they were walking. they learned to do that. so that is that the condition that they did not like. i wanted to show people that it is by the attitude. they were arriving. >>in some ways, a was a very shy person. you can make the casting for me something. to be honest, it is a reason because i am very specific. for me, when i have a boy or a girl, which i have to make the fitting, sometimes to the inspiring me so much. everything becomes full of colors. the color of the skin. it is fabulous for me. i can work and go on and enjoy and it is a pleasure. sometimes things are beautiful, but i do not know why.

maybe the attitude also. to feel the clothes. instruct me. i thought, i do not know what to do. i had some difficulty to work with her. it does not mean she is not beautiful or not nice. it means sometimes that some make me dream. summing we dream. >> inspiring you. >> yes. >> one thing that is very interesting in this exhibition if you have a section called urban jungle. you go and see it and it looks as though it is what you would typically say is taking animals and jungle and things i suppose from africa or perhaps india, but a lot of animals in it. as to get closer to the pieces, you realize that these are actually coutoure pieces. it is as though you have tamed the jungle. there is the extraordinary

leopard dress that tells you where the coutoure are and how many hours of workmanship are in there. so when you pay the bill, perhaps it is justified. [laughter] there is one that was 1,032 hours of hand or again beating. they're very few designers i can think of in coutoure who would do something like that. we were used to seeing coutoure very much what i would call salon clothing, a very beautiful and very delicate, but not with the sentence animal, vegetable, natural being brought into coutoure. was doing coutoure for use something that you wanted to make coutoure different are doing it -- did it make you different as a designer? >> it is difficult to answer that question. maybe for me, i did not go to

fashion school. i learned through looking what was about fashion in tv. at that time, it was only coutoure. and ready to wear. it was for france. like industrial things. no, only coutoure because it was aristocracy, the spirit of france. until the end of the 1980's. the designers of the 1980's. anyway, i was seeing that coutoure, made me dream. i realize that there were people that were not from coutoure but as good as coutoure. when i saw when i thought, i love it. it is nice in different. very creative. fabulous, ginzo. but i love coutoure. the way i was looking at magazines. i what -- i must say that my teacher was a journalist,

explaining the clothing. now we call them stylists, which in reality was an editor, especially one which is a dead now. it was very inspiring. one from the magazine "elle." f fabulous, fabulous editor. she was mixing the close. she was doing something else than the panoply. matching, like in coutoure. she was taking an overall and putting with high heels and glamorous jewelry. i loved it. it shows me that you are not obliged. you do not have to wear the matching thing. coutoure, i saw similar things and making the dream, you know?

instead, in myself, you know, i am sure that i was supposed to do coutoure. but at that time, there was no place. when i started, [unintelligible] it was more like my family or my mother or the concierge. it was sewing. more the kind of thing. very small. i should say that my days was coutoure. i did my ready-to-wear in my first years. and coutoure without realizing it. i think that honestly most of i think that honestly most of the designers of the 1980's were